Career Profile
Biancamaria is a Doctoral Researcher in the Archaeogenomics group, in the Estonian Biocentre (Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu). Her main interest is to assess the impact of cultural differences and habits on the quantitative and qualitative structure of the oral microbiome within groups of modern and ancient European populations, from the Neolithic to post-industrial period, through the analysis of ancient DNA (aDNA) and proteins from dental calculus. She also works on projects that focus on the study of the spread of diseases. She is involved in the development of new wet lab protocols for aDNA studies.
Experience
The main objective of the doctoral project is to assess the impact of cultural differences on the quantitative and qualitative structure of the oral microbiome within groups of European populations, from the Neolithic to post-industrial period . Development of wet lab protocols for aDNA and proteins extraction from ancient dental calculus and other substrates and analysis of ancient metagenomics sequencing data using in-house and published pipelines.
Internship program: Learning how to use the in-house pipeline for the analysis of shotgun metagenomics data; Learning how to conduct multivariate statistical analysis on data from ancient and modern dental calculus; Collaborating on ongoing projects.
Introduction to Ancient DNA Methods Traineeship Program: Learn how to produce ancient DNA NGS data from skeletal materials by working in the ancient DNA lab alongside the lab technician; learn basic bioinformatic analysis for processing DNA NGS data. The work was mainly focused on ancient dental calculus samples.
Postgraduate Research Scholarship funded by the Pasteur Institute Italy-Cenci Bolognetti Foundation The project involved the analysis of experimental data generated through Next- Generation Sequencing (NGS).
The activity included support of structured staff during events and conventions in which the University was involved, the organisation of events related with the Museums of the University as well as the development and maintenance of the website of the Museum Network (Polo Museale) of Sapienza University.
The work activity was carried out at the Museum of Anthropology, Department of Environmental Biology and involved creating a digital catalogue of bone specimens and materials, as well as conducting guided tours within the museum.
Projects
Here, a list of the main projects I have been collaborating to in these years.
Publications
A list of selected publications.